AN: Post-Berlin. Do not own. Enjoy!
Hospital coffee, she decides, is much worse than anything offered at the Navy Yard. She feels like she has reached a new understanding with her boss.
She paces and she caffeinates, wondering how walls can stay so white when she doesn't see anyone bleaching them, wondering how a room can smell so sterile when sterile isn't a scent, wonders when she's going to see natural light again.
You could if you went back to your room, she thinks. You do have a room. With a window. There is a bed. But she knows that is not an option, and so does everyone in her rotating visitor party. They stopped trying to get her to go back hours ago.
McGee, Ducky, Jimmy, Abby, Gibbs, they all go in and out. Vance was here, a ghost she never saw because she was still unconscious at that point. Only one person is a constant- well, two, she admits to herself- a white hair and cheeky grin combo who hides behind a suit and a joke on the loveseat across from her, flaunting his genetics she wishes she didn't recognize so easily. She wants him to leave just as much as she wants him to stay.
It should have been me. She's the one who opened the passengers' side door, she's the one who is three years older than she grew up ever expecting to live. She thought four months in hell would buy her exactly four more years. She can't admit that she isn't ready, though.
The doctors agree. You lucked out, it was pretty minimal damage for an SUV. It was. She was in some good graces that she doesn't remember earning. He would be making a joke too about them dodging the bullet, making an escape, a dozen different idioms that she perfected years ago but blunders sometimes naturally, but mostly on purpose these days to see if he'll correct her. If it's comical, he'll act exasperated and roll his eyes. If she plays the mistake as serious, she gets to see him smirk and bite back his response. Is he playing the game too, or is it still just her?
Junior will be alright, you know, the older man croons lazily, letting his words drip with comfort. He has done this before. He's got a pretty thing like you waiting for him on this side of the bright lights.
She wants to playfully hit him or or tilt her head with a flirty smile, but she fears either would lower the room temperature even more. The air does not need to be any drier, and it would not sit right.
Who is the emergency contact? A young orderly walks in, with a bored but concerned announcement that demands a older man tries to volunteer her but stops himself when he takes in her glazed over eyes. She is, but I am his father. Tell me. She hears the orderly protest, moan about rules and guidelines and procedure. She doesn't hear what he says, but the tone is biting and it convinces the young man to swallow his duties and proceed. We need to know if everything is in order... just in case. Senior's back is turned, but she knows he is either confused or in denial. She's both. Legally. Does he have a Will?
She can't feel her lungs contracting anymore, and she can't be sure if it's just her lack of feeling it or if she's not breathing. Neither matters are pressing. The only word she hears from Senior is a barked 'later!' preceding the orderly's sharp footsteps. The older man's hand finds her shoulder; she wishes he was the one crying. She looks up to ask him, if the man they're all waiting for has prepared for a departure from both of their lives. She's grateful he hears the question marks without her making a sound.
He stops looking at her. What could be so important on the floor? 2009. She blinks exactly twice in anticipation. Before he went... you know. Somalia.
She breaks far more quickly than expected. She hates that he is the one next to her, trying to lean down to pick her back up, extending joints far too old for this sort of comfort. She didn't even know he knew about her death in the desert, her summer months she wished to be back in purgatory, but of course he knew, he is his father, why wouldn't he? She wants to say something but she's glad he interrupts because she did not know where to start. Had the family lawyer draw it up. He was of the age anyway, you know... Two more excuses and mediocre reasons for his son planning his demise fumble out of his aged lips before he just pulls her in. She hates that it is him, a father figure that isn't hers, that she won't let herself imagine any deeper in her life. She has imagined him as her father-in-law exactly eight times. She thinks he knows that when she pulls back and he's still welcoming her, giving her long term permission for a permanent embrace with his watery eyes.
I'm going to distract the orderly, and you're going to go in there. He is out of surgery, they just won't let us see him because he's fragile. She does not like that word, but she likes his plan.
You should go first. He is your son, I understand. She shifts uncomfortably, and she almost attempts to draw the words back into her mouth. She knows he should go first but there is no way she can mean what she says.
He looks at her slowly, angling his head downward before he speaks. Sweetheart, we both know that when he does wake up, the first thing he'll be asking for is you.
She smiles, nods, and creeps around the corner into the continually bleached hospital hallway. She hears Senior put up some fuss, ask some nonsense questions in his businessman's tone that both charms and frustrates the young nurse and her orderly companion. She all but sprints into the guarded room, crawling the walls with speed she can only reach with this level of adrenaline. She turns with the door knob and door hinges and-
There he is.
Cocooned in gauze and sterile white sheets, it's the tube stuffed down his throat that gives her the most panic. He looks normal for the most part, a few cuts bandaged and a few stitches on his forehead, but his lips are curled around that damn tube and she hates that he can only cling to life by his mouth. Puckered and pink, she thought about kissing them exactly six times during their European escapade.
She wants to scream at him. James Bond, you have a license to KILL, not be killed! She wants to joke. She wants him to call her his Bond girl, to put on the Sean Connery voice, to inspect regular equipment for spy novelties. But she tries to shake him without making contact, hovering over his torso and neck and head, looking for a some weakness, for some sensitivity, for some patch of nerves she can press to bring him back to her. She pulls up the bedside chair, lowering herself into it as if it will pull away. Her hand makes it way into the bunch of wrapped gauze at the end of his arm. His fingers are covered to half their length, but are still freed enough for her to slowly intertwine with. I do not blame you. Can you do the same? She lays her head next to his hip, fearing the proximity to that tube his chest offers. Her next thought must be verbalized, for her own sake, and maybe for his too. Some days she fear he doesn't know she heard him in the desert. I guess I can't do it without you, either.